To grand lodges, grand orient and provinces

A note to the secretariats who receive the enquiries

Every year, men who would make good Masons fail to find a door. This is a small, self-funded attempt to show them the right one — and to hand your secretariat an enquiry already properly set out.

The service, in four steps

What actually happens when a man writes

Most sites explain Freemasonry. Very few tell a man who to write to. This one does four things, in this order — and none of them costs him anything.

01

A man at a kitchen table at night, reading a telephone

He looks for a door

Eleven at night, on a telephone, and not certain who to ask. Almost every masonic site tells him what the craft is. Very few tell him which body answers for the ground he stands on.

02

A man checking a telephone on a village street

He says where he stands

One question: the town he lives in. The desk names the grand lodge, province or district responsible for that place, and the address that body publishes for candidates.

03

A hand sealing a letter into an envelope on a desk

The letter is written for him

A formal enquiry in the proper form, addressed to the grand secretary or provincial secretary by office, sent to that address and copied to the desk. Not a web form that vanishes into a mailbox nobody reads.

04

Two men shaking hands in the doorway of an old stone building

He is not left waiting

He holds a reference and can see where the enquiry stands — received, acknowledged, passed to a lodge. If he changes his mind, one line withdraws it and the record is erased.

A secretary reading a printed letter at a library desk

For the secretary

What lands on your desk

01His name, the town he lives in, his age and occupation.
02The declarations his constitution requires, answered plainly — free will, belief, consent to enquiries.
03His own words, quoted, on why he is writing. Unedited.
04One request: if this is the wrong office or the wrong lodge, redirect him and tell him so.

One letter from one man. No attachment, no campaign, no second email unless you answer it.

No fee to the candidate, the lodge or the grand lodge

No advertising no affiliate, no regalia, no travel

No claim to authority regularity is yours to judge

Removal on request within one working day

Review your jurisdiction's entry Write to the desk

Who is writing

My name is Gabriel Odey. I am the Worshipful Master of Rose Window Lodge No. 7839, in the Province of Hampshire and Isle of Wight under the United Grand Lodge of England, and I have been a member since June 2017. This work is mine alone: it is not commissioned by, affiliated to, or endorsed by my Province, the United Grand Lodge, or any other masonic body. I write as a brother, in a private capacity.

What this service does

An enquirer tells the site where he lives. The site identifies the jurisdiction responsible for that place — 178 of them across 65 countries — and shows the enquiry route that jurisdiction publishes. It then composes a formal letter of enquiry on his behalf, sends it to that address, copies my own desk so that nothing is silently lost, and gives him a reference by which he can follow its progress.

Where a jurisdiction publishes no address, the letter is written and held, and the official route is shown, rather than guessed at. The desk is one man and a small database; it does not pretend to be more.

What it does not do

It charges nothing to enquirers, lodges or grand lodges, and carries no advertising.
It asks for no money, no membership lists, no ritual material, and no endorsement.
It makes no judgment on regularity or recognition. That is the competence of your Grand Lodge, and the site says so on every page.
It does not sell, rent or publish enquirer data. An enquirer may withdraw at any time and his record is erased.

What I would ask of you

A correction, if our entry for your body is wrong in any particular — name, address, website, or the address at which enquiries should arrive.
Confirmation of the address at which you prefer to receive enquiries from prospective candidates.
Your view on whether a service of this kind conforms with your own guidance to enquirers. If it does not, I will change it or stop listing your jurisdiction.
A link, if and only if you judge the service worthy of one. I would treat it as the strongest signal of confidence, and I would never presume upon it.

How the entries are compiled

Each jurisdiction is recorded from its own publication — its website, its published contact page, or the provincial list maintained by its grand lodge. Every record carries a verification state, and the site states plainly which one applies:

Verified — address, website and minimum age checked against the body's own publication.
Directory-listed — assembled from a reputable public directory and the body's website, pending confirmation of each field.
Unverified — the body is known to exist, but its public contact route has not been confirmed; enquiries are handled by hand.

Inclusion is not a certificate of regularity, and the site says so wherever a jurisdiction is listed.

Corrections and removal

Write to privacy@thewestgate.app from an address at your jurisdiction's domain, or on your letterhead, and say what should change. Amendments and removals are made within one working day, without argument and without requiring a reason. There is no charge for inclusion and none for removal.

Why bother

Masonic growth will not come from websites. But the way men look for anything now is a telephone, a search engine and two minutes of patience. A candidate who cannot find a door in those two minutes does not become a better candidate; he becomes someone who never asked. If this instrument saves your secretariat a few malformed enquiries and turns a few into proper ones, it will have been worth building.

Written by
Gabriel Odey, Worshipful Master, Rose Window Lodge No. 7839
Provincial Grand Lodge of Hampshire and Isle of Wight, United Grand Lodge of England
Grand Lodge reference 10718064 · member since 19 June 2017
privacy@thewestgate.app